Saturday, July 7, 2012

the word 'mama'

I thought that was true for all things 'James' -- especially him uttering the word 'mama.'

The one thing I didn't anticipate?

That he would literally say it probably a hundred times a day.

A day, y'all.

And, to be honest, it's probably more than a hundred. He'll say it ten times in a row in 20 seconds.

I never.

When we were at my parents' this week, my mom was upstairs and could hear James with me in the kitchen saying, 'Mama...mama...mama...mama...mama...' while I cooked dinner.

She came down and said, 'I don't know how you do it.'

I thought, 'Nor do I.'

Listen, it's great that he's so comfortable with us that he's become a chatter box. It's truly a beautiful thing.

But I'm just trying to cook up some grub.

I'm just trying to go about my daily tasks, ya know!?

There's a lot I'm learning about myself and God through adopting James. Some of the stuff about myself is ugly. And the stuff about God is glorious. More on this later.

A sweet adoptive mama and I affirmed something for each other -- to the point of us grabbing each other's forearms as we were struck with the same epiphany at the same moment. You see, she brought her sweet little girl home from China the same time we brought James home. In fact, we were in China together. And they live only about 30 minutes down the road. Such a small world. We've both had our children home for a few months. We both had grandiose ideas and thoughts about what it would be like when our adoption was complete; when our children were in our homes. When we were the moms God intended for us to be. Did you catch it?

We thought we were going to be better moms!

But you know what?

We're just the same mamas we've always been.

We (mistakenly) believed we were going to be better moms to even our biological kids by having adopted our children. We even thanked God in advance for how He was going to use the adoptions of our children to mold us into the mothers He wanted us to be. It's like we thought we'd never lose our patience or be short with or be annoyed by or want to scream at or get frustrated with our adoptive children. But the truth is, we are just...ourselves.

I'm a mom doing the best I can.

I lose my patience.

Even with James.

Some days, I'm a mom clinging to Jesus for every minute of the day.

I'm a mom biting my tongue and biding my time so I don't (hopefully) scar my children for life.

I'm a mom who doesn't know what the heck I'm doing half the time.

I'm a mom who questions herself.

I'm often a mom who's waiting to hear the front door knob turn at 6 PM. The beautiful sound of Reinforcements arriving.

I read this post today and it was life-giving to me. I just needed to be reminded to draw near to Jesus during these times. I've been struggling with that lately. Summertime tests my early rising. I just don't want to rise early and 'hit the day running.' Well, I do like to run, but not at 5:30 am. And if I don't get with Him in the earliest hours of the day, let's be honest, I tend not to. :( So I resort to 'breath prayers' throughout the day. Someone enters my mind, I pray for them. I hear something on the news, I pray for them. I remember someone who's hurting, I pray for them.

I think I've returned to a familiar season. One I was so glad to see go. One I used to loathe and drown in guilt in. The one where my routine, quiet, and still time with God hardly existed because I just couldn't drag myself out of bed an hour earlier than the kids. I had babies or toddlers or babies and toddlers. Regardless, I've found that the littler the people are in my home, the more I struggle with this. It's just a lot! But it's also a time when I need Him the most.

I'm sad in a sense to be back in this place, but the beautiful thing about this time around is that I'm not drowning in guilt. Sure, I miss my orderly, coffee-cup-at-hand time with Him. But this is a season and I know, as is my mantra these days, that God's grace is sufficient for this. And by 'this' I mean 'me.' God's grace is sufficient for me. Every shortcoming, every sin I commit, every time I blow it with my kids.

There were many years when I didn't know this.

I felt like a bad Christian all the time.

Thank You, Heavenly Father, for the grace and love that You shower me with every single day.